Columbian mammoth

The Columbian mammoth, Mammuthus columbi, is an extinct species of mammoth that lived in North America from southern Canada to Costa Rica during the Pleistocene. It descended from Eurasian steppe mammoths that colonised North America around 1.5 to 1.3 million years ago and later hybridised with the woolly mammoth lineage. Standing 3.72 to 4.2 metres at the shoulder and weighing 9.2 to 12.5 tonnes, it was one of the largest mammoths, larger than the woolly mammoth and the African bush elephant. It preferred open areas such as parkland and fed on sedges, grasses and other plants. Paleoindians hunted it for food and used its bones for tools, and its remains have been found with Clovis artefacts. The last Columbian mammoths date to about 12,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene extinction event. The pygmy mammoths of the Channel Islands of California evolved from it.